publications & presentations

When scientists and practitioners try to explain matters about data, they very often refer to metaphors from the physical world. Most of the terms have been established long before the digital era, they come from commerce (“data storage”, “data retrieval”, “data mining” or “data harvesting”) and nature (“data explosion”, “data is the new oil”, “Datenberg” (in German)). Han-Teng likes to speak of “data massage”. He uses the term to describe the manual effort of getting raw data (!) into the right shape before it can be further processed.

The terminology of data is full of metaphors. And – as it lies in the nature of metaphors – they are never never precise, because the words are taken out of context, they stem from another sphere of meaning and should explain entities that are difficult to understand otherwise. For instance, the “new oil” comparison is inadequate because data is (usually) not a finite resource.

A Barcamp is a place for low-threshold exchange of concepts and ideas.

Since 2008, I have been organizing a number of unfonferences, so-called Barcamps in Austria: At these types of events people gather and agree upon the schedule at the beginning. Everybody is expected to contribute to the unconference, either by presenting, by leading a discussion or by documenting the event. Heinz and I co-organized the first camp on political online communication in the German-speaking area. This year, I will organize a Barcamp at the European Forum Alpbach.

As Barcamps differ substantially from regular conferences, we at Wissensmanagementforum Graz decided to investigate this further and to conduct a research project about the Barcamp in Graz. This conference paper to be presented at I-KNOW in September is the first result of our research.

Barcamps are conferences without predefined content, often referred to as ad-hoc conferences or unconferences. Therefore, the outcomes of a barcamp are largely unknown before the event. This raises the question of participants’ motivations to attend and contribute. To answer this question, we conducted an exploratory empirical study at the Barcamp Graz 2012. We applied a mixed-method approach: first we used a sociodemographic questionnaire (n=99) which allowed us to characterize the ’typical barcamper’. Second, we conducted qualitative interviews (n=10) to get a deeper understanding of the participants’ motivations to attend, ex- pectations and the use of social media in that context. We identified three concepts, which could be deducted from the interviews: people, format and topics. We found that the motivation to attend and even a common identity is quite strongly based on these three factors. Furthermore, the results indicate that participants share a set of activities and methods by following the barcamp’s inherent rules and make extensive use of social media.

I would like to thank my co-authors, especially Sebastian Dennerlein and Robert Gutounig who took the lead in the publication, as well as all Barcamp participants who patiently answered our questions.

Brandt Brauer Frick made their name as one of the great electronic retro-innovations of 2010: Techno played live, mainly on traditional instruments such as piano and percussion, performed with extreme physical exertion. Ravers, hipsters, connoisseurs and mainstreamers, everyone agreed that this Berlin-made combo rocked. Daniel Brandt, Jan Brauer and Paul Frick were feted all over the world. From their music to their clothes, everything about them seemed to have been perfectly mapped out Kraftwerk-style down to the very last detail. But there was a subtle difference: While Kraftwerk aimed to reduce the human factor to an absolute minimum, Brandt Brauer Frick brought along a human touch never before seen or heard within the realms of machine music. Now Brandt Brauer Frick are ready to drop a new album called “Miami”. The three-piece have made a lot of progress, adding plenty of new ingredients to their basic recipe. The rhythms are more varied, and there is even room for vocals, provided by the likes of Jamie Lidell, Gudrun Gut (formerly of Einstürzende Neubauten) and Nina Kraviz. But don’t expect any big pop hooks. The vocals creep in at unexpected points, sometimes heavily distorted and processed. But the band went through a transformation that cannot be pulled off without compromise. “Miami” sacrifices some of the instant club appeal (granted, at times some techno and UK bass flavours shine through), trading the dance floor for concert halls and living rooms to join up the worlds of the classic gig and advanced electronics even further than before.